BMI Calculator for Adults
Now for many of you fitness enthusiasts out there including myself, you will notice that your BMI actually falls into what is considered the obese range. I first stumbled upon this a few years back when BMI was getting a lot of press and thought to myself this really isn’t accurate. What if you have a high amount of lean body mass?
For someone carrying more muscle mass than the “average” adult they will judged as obese through this ranking system. Even worse, what if my health insurance gives me higher premiums or I’m designated as a higher risk for obesity related ailments such as heart disease, diabetes, etc?
This was obviously very disheartening but fortunately a recent study published in the International Journal of Obesity has shed some light on this conundrum. They clearly state that the BMI rankings has severe limitations in both sexes and doesn’t accurately describe the relative obesity in severely obese subjects either.
Thankfully, a well respected journal has gone against the grain of popular medical opinion to bring these truths to light. If you feel you or your children have been diagnosed with a high BMI without just cause please present the following citation to them. After all, life is a never ending learning process and those of living the fitness lifestyle certainly are not AVERAGE.
The Body Mass Index Isn’t As Accurate As You Think!
As you delve into the world of muscle building and fitness you often come across stark contrasts with current medical opinion. Those who tend to push the envelope on the competitive side as they ascend through to the professional ranks often look great, but epitomize what it means to be unhealthy. It’s just the way it is. However, most of us exist somewhere in the mediocrity and do indeed live a healthy and fit lifestyle.
One tool the medical world has used to assess obesity is the Body Mass Index, or more commonly referred to as BMI. According to the Center for Disease Control & Prevention BMI is defined as “a number calculated from a person’s weight and height. BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people.
BMI does not measure body fat directly, but research has shown that BMI correlates to direct measures of body fat, such as underwater weighing and dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA).1, 2 BMI can be considered an alternative for direct measures of body fat. Additionally, BMI is an inexpensive and easy-to-perform method of screening for weight categories that may lead to health problems.”
1Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, MN, USA.
Body mass index (BMI) is the most widely used measure to diagnose obesity. However, the accuracy of BMI in detecting excess body adiposity in the adult general population is largely unknown.Methods: A cross-sectional design of 13 601 subjects (age 20-79.9 years; 49% men) from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Bioelectrical impedance analysis was used to estimate body fat percent (BF%). We assessed the diagnostic performance of BMI using the World Health Organization reference standard for obesity of BF%>25% in men and>35% in women. We tested the correlation between BMI and both BF% and lean mass by sex and age groups adjusted for race.Results: BMI-defined obesity (>/=30 kg m(-2)) was present in 19.1% of men and 24.7% of women, while BF%-defined obesity was present in 43.9% of men and 52.3% of women. A BMI>/=30 had a high specificity (men=95%, 95% confidence interval (CI), 94-96 and women=99%, 95% CI, 98-100), but a poor sensitivity (men=36%, 95% CI, 35-37 and women=49%, 95% CI, 48-50) to detect BF%-defined obesity.
The diagnostic performance of BMI diminished as age increased. In men, BMI had a better correlation with lean mass than with BF%, while in women BMI correlated better with BF% than with lean mass. However, in the intermediate range of BMI (25-29.9 kg m(-2)), BMI failed to discriminate between BF% and lean mass in both sexes.Conclusions: The accuracy of BMI in diagnosing obesity is limited, particularly for individuals in the intermediate BMI ranges, in men and in the elderly. A BMI cutoff of>/=30 kg m(-2) has good specificity but misses more than half of people with excess fat. These results may help to explain the unexpected better survival in overweight/mild obese patients. ***
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source: http://blog.bodybuilding.com/deserusan/2008/02/21/the-body-mass-index-isnt-as-accurate-as-you-think/
==================================
Obesity Increases the Prostate Cancer Death Risk
Obese men suffering from prostate cancer are two-and-a-half times more likely to die from it compared to normal-weight men, according to a recent study from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
The study involved almost eight hundred middle-aged men who were recently diagnosed with prostate-cancer, and followed the subjects for ten years. Seventeen percent of the subjects were obese and six percent of them died of prostate-cancer.
The mortality risk from prostate cancer for obese men is not related to the treatment, or prostate cancer stage at the time of the study, said Dr. Alan Kristal, senior author of the study. The risk for obese men is of 2.6 times greater compared to healthy weight men, regardless of the cancer diagnostic profile.
The results of the study are not related to whether the patient is subjected to radiation treatment, radical prostatectomy, or androgen-deprivation therapy. It does not matter if the subject suffers from a high grade cancer, or low-grade, localized, distant, or regional cancer, says Kristal.
Particularly, men with regional or local prostate-cancer have a 3.6-time higher risk of metastasis, or cancer spreading to other organs, than patients with a healthy weight. Obesity was strongly connected with prostate cancer especially for men with regional disease, meaning cancer that has already started to spread to surrounding tissues, compared to those with early cancer.
Researchers believe that inflammation and steroid hormones are behind the connection between prostate-cancer and obesity. Obesity is considered a massive inflammatory condition, which modifies the levels of serum estrogens and increases factors that lead to cancer growth, according to Kristal.
The study`s results are the first strong evidence showing that losing weight can be benefic for men with prostate cancer, by reducing the risk of death from the disease, said the researchers. ***
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source: http://www.calorie-counter-bmi-calculator.com/2008/02/21/obesity-increases-the-prostate-cancer-death-risk/
=========================
Now for many of you fitness enthusiasts out there including myself, you will notice that your BMI actually falls into what is considered the obese range. I first stumbled upon this a few years back when BMI was getting a lot of press and thought to myself this really isn’t accurate. What if you have a high amount of lean body mass?
For someone carrying more muscle mass than the “average” adult they will judged as obese through this ranking system. Even worse, what if my health insurance gives me higher premiums or I’m designated as a higher risk for obesity related ailments such as heart disease, diabetes, etc?
This was obviously very disheartening but fortunately a recent study published in the International Journal of Obesity has shed some light on this conundrum. They clearly state that the BMI rankings has severe limitations in both sexes and doesn’t accurately describe the relative obesity in severely obese subjects either.
Thankfully, a well respected journal has gone against the grain of popular medical opinion to bring these truths to light. If you feel you or your children have been diagnosed with a high BMI without just cause please present the following citation to them. After all, life is a never ending learning process and those of living the fitness lifestyle certainly are not AVERAGE.
The Body Mass Index Isn’t As Accurate As You Think!
As you delve into the world of muscle building and fitness you often come across stark contrasts with current medical opinion. Those who tend to push the envelope on the competitive side as they ascend through to the professional ranks often look great, but epitomize what it means to be unhealthy. It’s just the way it is. However, most of us exist somewhere in the mediocrity and do indeed live a healthy and fit lifestyle.
One tool the medical world has used to assess obesity is the Body Mass Index, or more commonly referred to as BMI. According to the Center for Disease Control & Prevention BMI is defined as “a number calculated from a person’s weight and height. BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people.
BMI does not measure body fat directly, but research has shown that BMI correlates to direct measures of body fat, such as underwater weighing and dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA).1, 2 BMI can be considered an alternative for direct measures of body fat. Additionally, BMI is an inexpensive and easy-to-perform method of screening for weight categories that may lead to health problems.”
1Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, MN, USA.
Body mass index (BMI) is the most widely used measure to diagnose obesity. However, the accuracy of BMI in detecting excess body adiposity in the adult general population is largely unknown.Methods: A cross-sectional design of 13 601 subjects (age 20-79.9 years; 49% men) from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Bioelectrical impedance analysis was used to estimate body fat percent (BF%). We assessed the diagnostic performance of BMI using the World Health Organization reference standard for obesity of BF%>25% in men and>35% in women. We tested the correlation between BMI and both BF% and lean mass by sex and age groups adjusted for race.Results: BMI-defined obesity (>/=30 kg m(-2)) was present in 19.1% of men and 24.7% of women, while BF%-defined obesity was present in 43.9% of men and 52.3% of women. A BMI>/=30 had a high specificity (men=95%, 95% confidence interval (CI), 94-96 and women=99%, 95% CI, 98-100), but a poor sensitivity (men=36%, 95% CI, 35-37 and women=49%, 95% CI, 48-50) to detect BF%-defined obesity.
The diagnostic performance of BMI diminished as age increased. In men, BMI had a better correlation with lean mass than with BF%, while in women BMI correlated better with BF% than with lean mass. However, in the intermediate range of BMI (25-29.9 kg m(-2)), BMI failed to discriminate between BF% and lean mass in both sexes.Conclusions: The accuracy of BMI in diagnosing obesity is limited, particularly for individuals in the intermediate BMI ranges, in men and in the elderly. A BMI cutoff of>/=30 kg m(-2) has good specificity but misses more than half of people with excess fat. These results may help to explain the unexpected better survival in overweight/mild obese patients. ***
-------------------------------------------------------------------
source: http://blog.bodybuilding.com/deserusan/2008/02/21/the-body-mass-index-isnt-as-accurate-as-you-think/
==================================
Obesity Increases the Prostate Cancer Death Risk
Obese men suffering from prostate cancer are two-and-a-half times more likely to die from it compared to normal-weight men, according to a recent study from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
The study involved almost eight hundred middle-aged men who were recently diagnosed with prostate-cancer, and followed the subjects for ten years. Seventeen percent of the subjects were obese and six percent of them died of prostate-cancer.
The mortality risk from prostate cancer for obese men is not related to the treatment, or prostate cancer stage at the time of the study, said Dr. Alan Kristal, senior author of the study. The risk for obese men is of 2.6 times greater compared to healthy weight men, regardless of the cancer diagnostic profile.
The results of the study are not related to whether the patient is subjected to radiation treatment, radical prostatectomy, or androgen-deprivation therapy. It does not matter if the subject suffers from a high grade cancer, or low-grade, localized, distant, or regional cancer, says Kristal.
Particularly, men with regional or local prostate-cancer have a 3.6-time higher risk of metastasis, or cancer spreading to other organs, than patients with a healthy weight. Obesity was strongly connected with prostate cancer especially for men with regional disease, meaning cancer that has already started to spread to surrounding tissues, compared to those with early cancer.
Researchers believe that inflammation and steroid hormones are behind the connection between prostate-cancer and obesity. Obesity is considered a massive inflammatory condition, which modifies the levels of serum estrogens and increases factors that lead to cancer growth, according to Kristal.
The study`s results are the first strong evidence showing that losing weight can be benefic for men with prostate cancer, by reducing the risk of death from the disease, said the researchers. ***
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source: http://www.calorie-counter-bmi-calculator.com/2008/02/21/obesity-increases-the-prostate-cancer-death-risk/
=========================
